Monthly Archives: July 2005

I know the race isn’t over, but it’s in its closing days and that means it’s time for my post race commentary.

• For the record I called race over as soon as Lance passed Ullrich during the prologue. Also, for the record, I was nervous about my pick after Disco blew up and left Lance alone on the sissy climb into Gerardmer at the end of the 8th stage. Colin would say that was all just posturing and faking and that they weren’t really that tired, but I believed it then and I believe it now.
• I still think it was stupid that nobody from CSC waited to ride in with the yellow jersey wearing David Zabriskie after he fell in the final kilo of the team time trail. On his blog he claims that before the race the team had agreed they would wait if it was Basso who fell.
• Watching Vino and T-Mobile have a mid-race meltdown has been great. The dude is fearless – in a ‘maybe this time I’ll succeed in running through a brick wall’ kind of way – and he didn’t get much, if any, support from his teammates. I wonder how you say “too many chiefs” in Kazakhstani.
• It’s hard to pick a favorite moment, but one of the best has to have been the Lance/Popovich exchange on the last climb of stage 10. After setting a blistering pace for the whole day, the ‘elite’ group at the front was starting to show a little weakness. Lance looked at Poppy, his last remaining teammate, and told him to crank it up. Poppy looked at him and said “when?” and Lance said “now” and the subsequent burst of acceleration basically decimated the field, braking the minds and bodies of the other contenders. Neat.
• The lack of an internet audio feed from OLN caused me to search out other options and I settled on the guys at Eurosport. Not to take anything away from Phil and Paul, but the Eurosport guys are awesome. Jumping up and down in the booth, screaming like maniacs, and oh, yeah, and they also know a hell of a lot about cycling. I found myself wishing they did the TV coverage, too.

The final individual time trial is tomorrow morning. They’re showing it live on the bigscreen down at The Riverview Theater so head down there if that type of thing interests you. If I knew for sure that there’d be a ton of people there I’d totally go, but I kinda feel like I’d be the only one in the theater and then it’d just be kinda sad.

We’ve been talking about getting a dog for years. We’ve read the books, we’ve interviewed dog owners, we’ve consulted with ‘experts’, and we’ve reminisced about how awesome the dogs we grew-up with were (her case) and/or how much we’ve always wanted one (my case). But at the end of the day, for lots of different reasons, it’s never the right time. And I’m totally at peace with that. Because I’m also totally sure the issue will come up again and when it does, well, maybe we’ll end up getting a dog and maybe we won’t. That’s the price you pay for having unpredictable cyclical canine consideration syndrome. And we’ve got it bad.
There’s an article in this month’s Money magazine about ‘designer dogs’. I didn’t read it, but I did look at the pictures and that was easily enough to convince me that the next time we have the dog debate there will be a couple of new entries in the ‘possibilities’ column: the goldendoodle and the labradoodle. For obvious and purely frivolous reasons, of course.
Designer Dogs [money]

It’s been a musical weekend ’round these parts. On Friday night, I met the family down at Peavey Plaza for the annual ’24 Hours of Music’ festival that celebrates the start of Minnesota Orchestra’s Sommerfest. I think this was the 5th year they’ve done it and logistically it was near flawless. Unfortunately I didn’t like (or maybe didn’t appreciate?) the line-up as much as in years past, but Spaghetti Western String Company were playing a 5pm set in Orchestra Hall and there was no effing way I was gonna miss that. It turned out even better than I had hoped. Witness: they previewed a bunch of awesome new songs from their upcoming EP, the air conditioning in the hall was set to about 66 degrees, and my kid actually sat quietly and watched for most of the show. Seriously, just try and paint a better picture than that. Uh huh, that’s what I thought, you got nothin’.
Then Saturday we got up and headed back down for the morning program, which was billed as “family friendly”. We got there in time see the last bit of the Twin Cities Bronze handbell choir which turned out to be an *enormous* hit. I think ‘transfixed’ would be the best word I could use to describe it. After the bells, a couple of ladies from the MacPhail Center got up and played some children’s songs and the kids all danced and it was fun but it was also pretty hot which made it somewhat less fun for dads who are out of shape and prone to sweating. At least the nice ladies in the Marshal Fields t-shirts were passing out free water.
Now it’s Sunday and I’m home alone and I’m finally taking the time to listen to the 5.1 mix of the new Ben Folds disc at skull-crushing volume. It’s the first time I’ve ever listened to a full album in 5.1 and it’s a little weird. I guess if they want to take the time to mix it in surround I’ll go ahead and listen, but it’s probably not something I’d return to every day. It’s also disappointingly predictable: backing vocals? Rear channel. Splash cymbals? Rear channel. Lead vocals? Center channel. Duh. All those possibilities and they take the obvious way out. So lame. Or maybe I was just expecting too much, who knows.